Crazy dog lady and the Mental Healthcare Bill

I am 35 years old, single, servile human to three rescued dogs, and the crazy dog lady you hear about in whispers at parties I don’t go to. Coincidentally, I’ve been diagnosed with depression and wear meditation beads as regimented couture.

On March 27, the Lok Sabha passed the new Mental Healthcare Bill that, among other features, notably decriminalises suicide, allows a person with mental illness the right to an Advance Directive, and forbids the use of Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) for minors.

While the new Bill is progressive in its intent and tone, and appears to empower persons with mental illness, it is to be seen how the fine print plays out. For instance, the Advance Directive empowers a person with mental illness to choose what kind of treatment s/he wants, and who her or his nominated representatives will be. However, if a relative, caregiver, or mental health professional does not want to follow the Directive, s/he can appeal to the Mental Health Board to review, alter, or cancel it. This essentially suggests that the dangled carrot of the Directive can almost immediately be taken away, putting the power right back in the hands of those whom the Bill aims to exclude from its patient-centric angle.

Further, while we are celebrating the ban on ECT for minors, the Bill merely limits its use for adults: a shockingly regressive move. Everything we know about ECT points to the ‘zombie-like’ vegetative states that it results in. If experts in the field can effectively conclude mental illness from the grossly distorted glass of pathology, what this vegetative state further proves is the existence of fallback on such malnourished theory. Little attention is then required to be paid to whether or not the pathologies were a result of ECT or existed before such therapy was performed.

A universal issue with mental health advocacy has been the very concept of the term ‘unsound mind’ and the hundreds of harmless little clichés that encourage a titter at a social gathering and a flutter in the hearts of those who are on the receiving end.

Living in societies that mock and encourage fear of or resistance to mental illness, means that a large portion of an estimated six-seven per cent of the population are likely to deny the possibility that they have a mental illness for years before they come to accept it. If at all. Can you imagine the odds?

I shudder to think. But then shuddering constitutes a large portion of what we’ll politely call my ‘bad days’.

Regardless of the various possible successes and shortcomings of the Bill, what no Bill can do is change an entire society’s mindset towards and stereotyping of mental illness. As a single woman living with three dogs and working in animal welfare, you’re getting this from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. The crazy dog lady herself.

I’ll wait to see how the Bill pans out, right here from Satis House, the cobwebs shrouding my ancient wedding cake, my flashing eyes, my floating hair, my literary allusions, and my mixed metaphors.

(Anoopa Anand lives in Bengaluru and is a writer, editor, and animal welfare worker. Her interest in mental health began when she was diagnosed with depression late in 2016)

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